Benefits of the Universal Service Fund

The Federal Communications Commission recently released a short document that highlights the benefits that come from the Universal Service Fund. The FCC touts the following benefits from the Universal Service Fund:

• E-Rate Program: This program provides subsidized broadband connectivity to schools and libraries. From 2022 to 2024, 106,000 schools and 12,597 libraries received over $7 billion in benefits to reduce the cost of broadband connectivity and internal connections. This benefitted over 54 million students.
• Rural Health Care Program: This program provides discounted connections for rural nonprofit healthcare providers. From 2021 to 2023, this fund provided over $1.6 billion to benefit 16,080 health care providers with connectivity costs.
• Lifeline Program: As of March 2024, over 7.5 million low-income households were receiving the $9.25 monthly discount for phone and/or broadband service.
• High-Cost Program: In 2023, carriers nationwide received over $4.2 billion to build infrastructure to bring better broadband to rural communities.